Michael Haneke

Despite his bleak and often masochistic view of humanity, Austrian-born filmmaker Michael Haneke has nonetheless established himself as one of Europe's most important, albeit controversial directors....
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American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis has been selected to serve as the international jury president at Belgium's Film Fest Gent. The writer, who also penned the script for Lindsay Lohan film flop The Canyons, follows in the footsteps of director Michael Haneke and French actress Jeanne Moreau, who previously held the role. The 2014 festival, which will pay tribute to French film, kicks off on 14 October (14).

Belgian opera director Gerard Mortier has lost his battle with pancreatic cancer at the age of 70. The star died at his home in Brussels on Saturday (08Mar14).
Mortier, who was known for his avant-garde approach to opera, rose to fame in the early 1980s, when he served for three years as general director of Belgium's Rola Theatre of the Mint.
He later headed Austria's Salzburg Festival for a decade from 1991, and took charge of the Paris Opera from 2004 to 2009.
Mortier took on the role of artistic director at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Spain in 2009, and won high praise for a production of Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte, directed by Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke.
He also spearheaded an opera version of 2005 film Brokeback Mountain, which premiered at the Teatro in January (14).
Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo announced the news of Mortier's death on Sunday (09Mar14), hailing him as a "visionary and generous personality", while French President Francois Hollande also paid tribute, stating, "He never stopped fighting, until the end of his strength, for culture in Europe."

Sony Pictures via Everett Collection
Each year, foreign films are among the most critically acclaimed, yet they fail to catch on with American audiences. In 2013 alone, Italy's The Great Beauty, France's Blue Is the Warmest Color, and Romania's Beyond the Hills were praised by critics, but they were overlooked at the American box office. It seems, generally, that American audiences are averse to subtitles, and instead prefer to sit back, relax, and let a film do all of the work. There is a misconception that all foreign films are "artsy" and "complicated," which causes American audiences to ignore them. Not only is this not true, but it's also a shame that leads us to missing out on some of the best films ever made. Below is a list of 10 foreign films that you should start watching immediately. These films don't require an appreciation for art-house cinema nor do they require a film studies degree. All that is needed is an open mind, an ability to read, and a love for the cinema.
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2007)
Directed by Cristian Mungiu, this powerful Romanian film follows a young woman as she tries to obtain an illegal abortion for her friend. Set in the 1980s, the film is situated within the Romanian New Wave, a recent cinematic movement in which filmmakers come to terms with the consequences of the Ceausescu dictatorship. You can stream 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days on Netflix and Amazon.
The Best of Youth (2005)
I ordinarily wouldn't recommend a six-hour film to anyone, but now that we're in the age of binge watching, it's a propitious time for audiences to discover this gem from Italian director Marco Tullio Giordana. The film is an epic narrative of one family over the course of 40 years as they react to personal and political turmoil. Many critics, including A.O. Scott, listed this beautiful film as one of the best of the 2000s. You can stream The Best of Youth on Netflix.
The Edge of Heaven (2008)
Written and directed by Fatih Akin, this Turkish-German drama tells the story of a Turkish man who returns to Istanbul to find the daughter of his father's former girlfriend. It's a moving tale of the binds that tie families together and how they can be torn apart. You can stream The Edge of Heaven on Netflix and Amazon.
Mysteries of Lisbon (2011)
Like The Best of Youth, Mysteries of Lisbon is a long film, but the rewards are endless. Master director Raúl Ruiz has made the ultimate costume drama with this film, and audiences unknown to his work will surely be delighted, amazed, and enthralled. You can stream Mysteries of Lisbon on Amazon.
Offside (2007)
Jafar Panahi's Offside depicts the struggle women face in Iran through their exclusion from soccer stadiums. The film is often funny and endearing, but it never strays from the political message at its core. You can stream Offside on Amazon.
Oslo, August 31st (2012)
Joachim Trier's second feature film follows the day in the life of Anders, a young recovering drug addict, as he reunites with old friends and family. Olso, August 31st is a bittersweet film about the inevitability of change. You can stream Olso, August 31st on Netflix and Amazon.
The Piano Teacher (2002)
Isabelle Huppert gives a harrowing performance as a masochistic piano teacher in Michael Haneke's French erotic thriller. Haneke is known to most American audiences for his Oscar nominated love story Amour (2012), but it's here where his brilliance shines through. You can stream The Piano Teacher on Netflix.
Poetry (2011)
From South Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-dong, Poetry is a heartbreaking film about an older woman who struggles with the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. In order to cope, she enrolls in a poetry class, and what follows is a melancholy meditation on memory and the mind's inability to cope with the past. You can stream Poetry on Netflix and Amazon.
Wadjda (2013)
Billed as the first feature film to be shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, and the first feature film made by a female Saudi director, Wadjda is a cultural landmark. Writer/director Haifaa al-Mansour has created an uplifting ode to female liberation in the face of oppression. Despite the film’s charming tone, there is a powerful political message at its core that cannot be forgotten: In many cultures, women remain disenfranchised. You can stream Wadjda on Amazon.
Waltz with Bashir (2008)
This animated documentary from Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman comes to terms with the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Waltz with Bashir is a wildly ambitious film about the horrors of war and the ways individuals and nations respond to it. You can stream Waltz with Bashir on Amazon.
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Acclaimed photographer Annie Leibovitz has been awarded one of Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias prizes. The American snapper has won the 2013 Prince of Asturias accolade for Communication and Humanities for being a "driving force" in her field and producing images that "reflect an era of politics, literature, film, music and sport".
Leibovitz, whose best-known work includes shots of a pregnant Demi Moore and John Lennon naked, will receive a $62,000 (£40,000) grant at a ceremony in October (13).
The Communication and Humanities accolade has previously been bestowed on novelist Umberto Eco, The National Geographic Society and Google for promoting the "humanistic values that form part of mankind's universal heritage".
Amour director Michael Haneke won this year's (13) Prince of Asturias arts prize for his "relentless, personal exposure of reality".

Austrian director Michael Haneke has beaten dozens of competitors to win one of Spain's most prestigious arts awards. The Amour director was presented with the Prince of Asturias accolade in Madrid on Thursday (09May13). He was chosen above 32 contenders to take the $62,000 (£40,000) prize.
A statement from the Asturias Foundation reads, "His penetrating, radical gaze on society has allowed him to explore uncharted terrain to become one of the leading auteurs of contemporary European cinema."
The honour comes after a stellar awards season for Haneke - Amour, about a couple coming to terms with old age, won a raft of prizes earlier this year (13), including the Best Foreign Film Oscar.

It's not Mother's Day just yet, but one Internet mom is already getting her share of attention. YouTube user PixelsPerSecond asked his mother to retell the beloved sci-fi flick The Matrix as she saw it, and in return, he animated it and served her up to the Interet masses.
Now, Mom (as we'll call her for these purposes) may not be right about much of the movie – how the hell did she get to "Moshimo" instead of "Morpheus" anyway? – but her version of the story just might be more enjoyable than the original. Sorry, Wachowskis. There are twists! (Neo transforms into Leo DiCaprio!) And turns! (Did Walmart provide all those guns?) And epic questions! (Okay, really, who the heck is Moshimo?)
Find out, when Mom tells us the story of Neo (or is it Neil?) and how he "beat out" the Matrix.
Follow Kelsea on Twitter @KelseaStahler
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It's a kinder, gentler movie blog. Thumbs &amp; Ammo takes the most iconic, gun centric movie shots at renders them upbeat. All it takes is a little Photoshop.
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Unearthed by PetaPixel, Thumbs &amp; Ammo runs with the tagline "Real tough guys don't need guns, they just need a positive, can-do attitude." And everyone, from James Bond to Angelina Jolie to Indiana Jones, has been changed to a really upbeat guy or gal — no guns necessary.
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Now, it's not totally clear whether or not this blog has any ulterior motive aside from a little photoshop fun, but it touches on the hot-button topic of guns in movies in an interesting way. What would movies look like without guns? Probably not quite like this, but they'd be greatly changed for sure. Take a look for yourself:
Who's got two thumbs and a mischevious disposition? This guy.
Good going, Han. Rambo really applauds your positive attitude.
Follow Kelsea on Twitter @KelseaStahler
[Photo Credits: Thumbs &amp; Ammo (3)]
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The ABCs of Death, an anthology of 26 short films about people being killed in spectacularly gruesome, farcical, and universally disgusting ways, is scary in a way its makers may not have anticipated: it shows how deeply uninspired and visionless horror-movie filmmaking has become.
Ever since the genre stopped caring about bottling the sensation of fear in favor of shock and gore, it’s gotten away from true horror, a format that works best when deeply invested in the psychology of fear. Movies like the Saw franchise and its various torture-porn imitators have become less and less interested in messing with their audience’s brains than moving the goalpost of the grotesque ever further, an objective that ensures obsolescence. There are only so many severed limbs and plucked eyeballs you can see before you’re irrevocably desensitized. What haven’t we seen that could still shock us? The list of possibilities grows smaller and smaller. Tom Six actually managed to horrify us in a whole new way with The Human Centipede, but even that nightmare concept became commercialized, sequelized, and stale.
Twenty-seven directors, all supposedly luminaries in the horror movie world, were brought in to film two-to-four minute segments for The ABCs of Death, in an attempt to show the diversity the genre still posseses. Sadly, rather than expand the parameters of horror, these twenty-seven filmmakers mostly converge on the same tropes. There are three conditions for each short: they must begin and end on an image of red (guaranteeing that at least half of the shorts begin and end with a shot of blood), there must be one death, and they must correspond to a letter of the alphabet — meaning we get titles like “F is for Fart,” “L is for Libido,” and “W is for WTF.” That ensures the audience will experience acute B for Boredom on account of L for Laziness.
Anyone who’s made short films can tell you that cinematic storytelling in under 10 minutes tends toward heightened emotions, with narrative twists that seek to compress a feature’s worth of sensation into a tiny window. Add a requisite horror element and you get a succession of Jack in the Box effects. “D is for Dogfight” is transgressive, I suppose, in its depiction of a man graphically biting a dog, but it's diminished because, in the end, that short is entirely about how transgressive it is. And most of these films are just wafer-thin hooks for startling images. The opening salvo of a segment, “A is for Apocalypse,” about a wife taking care of her bedridden husband who reaches a drastic decision regarding his care, should play like a more gruesome version of Michael Haneke’s Amour. Instead it is robbed of any resonance because director Nacho Vigolondo provides no context to the couple's relationship.
However, the filmmakers here who successfully answer the question “What can still scare us?” locate that answer where great artists before them did: in real-world fears. Eli Roth’s Hostel movies stand as credible horror unlike the Saw flicks because they tap a uniquely insular (and uniquely American) fear of the rest of the world beyond the United States. In The ABCs of Death Hobo with a Shotgun auteur Jason Eisener does just that in “Y is for Youngbuck,” which translates a very real fear of childhood sexual abuse into cathartic revenge.
Similarly Simon Rumley’s “Pressure” taps a mother’s uncertainty about how to provide for her children, and shows just how far she is willing to go to support them. Lee Hardcastle’s “T is for Toilet” finds horror in what used to be an old standby in the heyday of Polanski: plumbing, and its function of keeping us blissfully unaware of where excrement goes. Ti West (The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers), possibly the most original American horror maestro of the last decade, dives deep into the realm of body horror with “M is for Miscarriage,” as do Amer masterminds Bruno Forzani and Héléne Cattet with the ode to David Cronenberg “O is for Orgasm.”
These shorts are the ones that actually get inside our heads. If our brains are our biggest erogenous zone, so is it also the nexus of our fears. Not our stomachs, nor our adrenal glands. That’s why you need story to fuel and contextualize the greatest scares. Without story giving context to sex, you’ve got YouPorn. Without story giving context to horror, you’ve got much of The ABCs of Death.
1.5/5
What did you think of the film? Let Christian Blauvelt know on Twitter @Ctblauvelt
[Photo Credit: Drafthouse Films]
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The new Star Wars VII trailer is here! ... if Star Wars VII was made in an alternate French universe in which the story of the family dynamics between Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leia played out tragically, much like director Michael Haneke's devastating Best Foreign Film Oscar winner Amour, at least.
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Anyone who is under the wildly misinformed impression that the French have no sense of humor clearly haven't been paying attention. While the country's biggest internationally successful film this year is Amour, the dour tale of the complicated love between two elderly people creeping towards the inevitable and unavoidable conclusion of life, the country's top film awards (The Césars) took a moment to celebrate their lighter side with a mash-up of Haneke's acclaimed film and the future Star Wars sequel.
From glimpses of Leia after her beauty has waned, to Luke struggling with the task of caring for his ailing father Vader, who's so far gone he thinks his little yorkie is Chewbacca, the clip fully embeds the Star Wars universe into the brutally realistic universe of Amour to hilarious effect. (No, seriously, it's okay to laugh. We promise.)
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One thing's for sure, Haneke's not cut out for J.J. Abrams' Star Wars VII directing gig, and not just because his light sabers are gentle enough to touch one's hand to the laser beam.
Watch the parody below:
Follow Kelsea on Twitter @KelseaStahler
[Photo Credit: YouTube]
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After losing out to Ang Lee at the 2013 Oscars, a win that would have earned him his third Best Director statue, Steven Spielberg has found an equally prestigious gig: leading the 2013 Cannes Film Festival jury.
Slated to begin on May 15, the Festival de Cannes enters its 66th year, with the legendary director presiding over the committee that will hand out the coveted Palme d'Or award. Spielberg is no stranger to Cannes, having screened Sugarland Express, The Color Purple, and E.T. at the festival. In a press release, film festival President Gilles Jacob admits to having chased Spielberg for years, never being able to secure him as Jury President due to his demanding shooting schedule. From the sounds of it, the Lincoln director couldn't be happier to squeeze Cannes into his 2013.
“My admiration for the steadfast mission of the Festival to champion the international language of movies is second to none," says Spielberg. "The most prestigious of its kind, the festival has always established the motion picture as a cross cultural and generational medium.”
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Unlike the Academy Awards or most big name film festivals, Cannes is known for its worldly and eclectic lineups — not your standard Hollywood "prestige films." And while Spielberg continues to challenge himself with topics and styles outside his comfort zone, he certainly has an American film industry gloss to his movies. Which makes us wonder: will Spielberg wind up picking the most "Spielbergian" film of the crop? Cannes may be a chance for Spielberg to show off his tastes for movies he would never make, but we wouldn't be surprised if the winner winds up being an uplifting story following a person struggling against great odds (if it's a kid, even better) accompanied by a sweeping score and peppered with instances of the Spielberg Face: that mouth-agape moment embodying true amazement.
That's half of what's expected from the head juror: personal reflection. What Spielberg brings to the table as a filmmaker and as a movie-watcher will be reflected in his decision — and he won't be alone. Here are a few examples of Jury Presidents of yesteryears and the Cannes films they bestowed with the Palme d'Or. Just surprising enough:
2011: Robert De Niro, Tree of Life
As a performer highly regarded across the globe, it's not surprising that De Niro gravitated towards the grandest of 2011 competition entries. Terrence Malick's didn't win over everyone in France — apparently, they're not as keen on wheat fields as most Americans — but the story of troubled boyhood must have resonated with an actor who made a career out of playing dangerously warped men.
2010: Tim Burton, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Apichatpong Weerasethakul's winning film Uncle Boonmee revolves around a dying man wading through his memories alongside his family… including the ghosts of his loved ones. The weird and wonderful played right to Burton's tastes.
2009: Isabele Huppert, The White Ribbon
The White Ribbon is a dense, chilling exploration of how even the nicest kids can grow up to be murderous Nazis, but there may have been a little favoritism when Michael Haneke (Amour) picked up his second Palme d'Or: Huppert previously starred in his 2001 film The Piano Teacher.
2008: Sean Penn, The Class
Penn leads a double life: he's an award-winning actor who spends most of his time promoting social advocacy. The Class speaks to his off-screen quests, diving into the tricky world of education and boiling it down to human stories.
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2004: Quentin Tarantino, Fahrenheit 9/11
His divisive and, often times, bizarre tastes (a published list of his favorite films of 2011 included Moneyball and The Three Musketeers) made Tarantino an unpredictable jury member. The fact that he landed on Michael Moore's caustic George W. Bush documentary — the first non-fiction film to win the Palme d'Or since 1956 — was both a shock and perfectly aligned with his sensibilities.
1994: Clint Eastwood, Pulp Fiction
Speaking of Tarantino, cinema's resident badass took the opportunity to award the rising directorial star at the 1994 Cannes Film Fest. When anyone pictured a lawman stuffing a gun in goon's face, the man holding the pistol was Eastwood. He was iconic. Tarantino's Pulp Fiction reshaped the identity of violence in movies, and it's logical that Eastwood would be the man to award the work.
1976: Tennessee Williams, Taxi Driver
Even today, Williams is one of the most recognizable American dramatists, a voice capable of reflecting the underbelly of the country's picture perfect image (in fact, he feels so mythical, it's hard to believe he was once a Cannes judge). So leave it to Williams to name Martin Scorsese's harrowing Taxi Driver — one of the director's many this-can't-possibly-be-how-this-country-actually-is-oh-wait-it-totally-is-NOOOOO films from the '70s and '80s — with the Palme.
1966: Sophia Loren, The Birds, the Bees and the Italians
Legendary Italian bombshell picks Italian sex comedy? Perfetto!
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Began working as a writer and producer for Südwestfunk, Bavaria's equivalent of BBC

Helmed first TV movie "After Liverpool" (Südwestfunk); also co-wrote

Made film directorial and writing debut with "The Seventh Continent"; film was first in trilogy

Finished trilogy with grisly drama "71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance"

Wrote and directed "Amour," about an octogenarian couple played by Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva

With family, moved from Germany to Austria after WWII

Helmed controversial thriller "Funny Games," about a family sadistically tortured by two young men; also wrote screenplay

Directed Isabelle Huppert in erotic drama "The Piano Teacher"; received Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film

Summary

Despite his bleak and often masochistic view of humanity, Austrian-born filmmaker Michael Haneke has nonetheless established himself as one of Europe's most important, albeit controversial directors. Ever since his emergence with "The Seventh Continent" (1989), a deeply disturbing look at soul-crushing domesticity, Haneke established himself as a director unafraid to explore the darkest recesses of human nature. But it was "Funny Games" (1997), a shocking examination of society's complicity in media violence, that brought Haneke to the fore, earning him both praise and scorn for his often overindulgent depictions of brutality. He earned several awards and nominations for "The Piano Teacher" (2002), perhaps one of the most detailed studies of sexual deviancy ever filmed, which propelled Haneke onto the international stage. With his shot-for-shot remake of "Funny Games" (2008) for English-speaking audiences, and the back-to-back Palme d'Or winners "The White Ribbon" (2009) and "Amour" (2012), Haneke introduced himself to a wider array of fans and detractors who were in mutual agreement that he was the crown prince of cinematic darkness.